Game of Thrones: the long-awaited Cleganebowl, explained

Fans have been “hype” for Sandor and Gregor Clegane’s epic final showdown for years. Should they have been?

For years, Game of Thrones fans have been clamoring to see Sandor Clegane, a.k.a. the Hound, and his brother Gregor Clegane, a.k.a. the Mountain, battle it out in an epic matchup dubbed “the Cleganebowl.” The two are reputedly the best fighters in all of Westeros, and ever since the sadistic Mountain gave his brother some nasty facial scarring in his childhood, the Hound has thirsted for revenge.

So when season eight’s fifth episode, “The Bells,” finally gave fans the long anticipated standoff, it had to deliver something truly spectacular. And indeed, it was exactly the earth-shattering battle for which fans had been hoping — while somehow also fitting neatly within the episode’s larger themes of the horrors of war, fire, and social and cultural collapse.

Want to know who — if anyone — won? Read on! But, of course, spoilers follow.

The idea for a final showdown between the Hound and the Mountain is built into the story — and in the end, the Hound got his due

The Mountain and the Hound have always been at odds. Even as a child, Gregor Clegane was a sadistic bastard. Littlefinger tells Sansa in season one’s fourth episode, “Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things,” that when they were children, the Mountain held a terrified Hound’s face to a burning hearthfire, leaving him with permanent facial scarring and a fear of fire.

We also learned in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels, upon which Game of Thrones is based, that Gregor probably didn’t limit his violence just to his little brother Sandor; the first novel, A Game of Thrones, implies that he not only tortured Sandor, but may have also killed their sister and father in order to more quickly obtain his title to the family lands. Sandor fled their family home the day Gregor came into his inheritance, and has spent most of his life since waiting for the perfect moment to finally exact revenge.

Where the Hound and the Mountain were once both fierce fighters, however, they were now both feebler versions of themselves heading into episode five — the Hound still wasn’t at 100 percent after a battle that left him nearly dead four seasons ago. And the Mountain was, uh, some sort of zombie. Plus, despite what the Hound has always said — as recently as season seven, he told his zombified brother that “you know who’s coming for you;” i.e., him — it was uncertain whether he even still wanted revenge.

But following his moment’s hesitation in the Battle of Winterfell, the Hound’s purpose seemed clear as he rode with Arya Stark down to King’s Landing — she to pursue her revenge against Cersei, and he to finally take on the Mountain. And while, in a touching final moment between them, he persuaded Arya to leave for her own safety, the Hound managed to get the face-off against the Mountain he’d always wanted.

The result? A beautifully filmed sequence in which the two brothers fought amid collapsing towers and turrets, both evenly matched. After delivering what would normally have been multiple final blows several times over, Sandor realized that the zombie version of his brother was unkillable by any means other than fire — which just happens to be the thing Sandor fears most.

So the Hound did the most Hound-like thing possible — he grabbed the danger by the fistfulls and hurled himself and the Mountain off the castle edge into the fire far below, taking out his brother once and for all, and dying himself in what was arguably the “best,” most heroic death of the series so far. RIP, Sandor Clegane: May many chickens await you in the afterlife.

Thus, the Cleganebowl was complete; and while there were no clear victors, in a way, everyone won.

Cleganebowl has always been about two things: vengeance and memes

Over the years, the Cleganebowl has become one of GoT fandom’s longest-running memes, with fans frequently yelling “get hype!” as they awaited what they hoped would be a truly knock-down, dragout battle between two formidable opponents. (Think something like the raging combat between Hound and Ser Brienne in the finale of season four, “The Children.”)

According to the venerable Know Your Meme, the idea for the Cleganebowl first appeared in a 4chan thread in 2013, just before the third season debuted. An anonymous fan speculated that the season might involve the Hound and the Mountain facing off against one another in a trial by combat, in which they would each show off their mighty fighting skills in a battle to end all battle. Initially, the fight was part of a whole theory that the Hound was the “little brother” who was prophesied to kill Cersei. Over the years, however, that theory has looked less and less likely, and the idea of the Cleganebowl has expanded to be about any potential fight between the Mountain and the Hound. A Cleganebowl subreddit was even created in 2014, and has been a trusty source of memes and discussion devoted to the fight ever since.

A huge part of the fun of the Cleganebowl, beyond the quirky humor of treating a medieval fantasy event like a modern-day sporting match, has been simply anticipating it. This fan video released just hours before the fifth episode airs is a fitting example:

It also involves a lot of chickens, because the Hound really loves chicken.

The Hound is one of the show’s most popular characters, and the popularity of the Cleganebowl comes from both the fandom’s love for him (and actor Rory McCann) and the desire to see him finally have his revenge on the Mountain for what sounds like a childhood full of abuse. But it’s also special because most plot threads on Game of Thrones — like who should sit on the Iron Throne — are hugely divisive, while the Cleganebowl meme points to one of the few things we can all agree on, which is that it’d be awesome to watch an intense fight between two Westerosi titans.

The Cleganebowl doesn’t really fit who the Hound is these days — but it was still a triumphant end for his character on the show

Over eight seasons, the Hound has had a slow but meaningful redemption arc, as he’s transitioned from being a violent thug for kings, to a hardened loner who’s lost his taste for fighting, to a man who’s slowly reinvented himself through community work and fighting with Jon in the North — working to create mostly positive change after a lifetime of wreaking mostly destruction.

Where the Hound was once the epitome of alpha male masculinity, he’s gradually been softened over time: he’s developed a fondness for the Stark sisters, Arya in particular, and has steadily worked through closely held guilt over his earlier violence and selfish actions. The Battle of Winterfell actually saw him cower for a moment, overwhelmed both by his lifelong fear of fire and the reality of just how vast the White Walker army actually was. This is not the Hound we met in season one, nor should he be.

On Twitter, book editor Angelina Meehan posted a long reflective thread on the Hound’s character arc, and though it’s drawn primarily from his role in the Song of Ice and Fire books, it holds true for his character trajectory on the show as well. Meehan argues that his character is a study in how damaging toxic masculinity can be for men like the Hound who are immersed in it and forced to wield it; it ultimately leaves him devastated, weakened, and frankly pathetic, before he steadily builds himself up again as an entirely different kind of man. “The Hound is Dead,” she writes, referencing a metaphor from the books in which the Hound tries to disguise himself as a different man, “is clearly a metaphor for the violent side of his personality being relinquished. [T]hat is over.” Except that on the show, it clearly wasn’t over.

For that Sandor Clegane, the one who gradually rejected the idea of ultraviolence as a way of life, to choose to trek back to King’s Landing purely to seek revenge on his zombified brother at long last, might arguably be a step backward in his narrative trajectory. Sure, it offers some potential catharsis, and it definitely ticks an item off the Game of Thrones fanservice bucket list. But is it true to the character?

In the end, that might not have even mattered. The Hound who fought the Mountain on Sunday night’s episode was the character fans first fell in love with, and that’s who they wanted to see go out with a bang — or, in this case, a plunge. And those fans got their wish. Plus, we got to see the Mountain without his head thingy! Look how gross he is!

So, sure: This was a Cleganebowl started on questionable grounds, with the brothers both deciding that the moment when the city was literally collapsing was the perfect time to have their final pow-wow. But if you’re going to sloppily shoehorn in a fanservice-y battle that millions of fans have been wanting for years, there are far worse ways this particular battle could have turned out.